Citizens Advice Wigan Borough Privacy Policy

Your personal information

At Citizens Advice we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems, improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people's lives.

We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you're comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and treat it as confidential.

When we record and use your personal information we:

only access it when we have a good reason

only share what is necessary and relevant

don't sell it to anyone

When we use your information without permission

At times we might use or share your information without your permission. If we do, we'll always make sure there's a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have to use or share your information:

to comply with the law - for example, if a court orders us to share information. This is called ‘legal obligation’

to protect someone's life - for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was unwell at our office. This is called ‘vital interests’

to carry out our legitimate aims and goals as a charity - for example, to create statistics for our national research. This is called ‘legitimate interests’

for us to carry out a task where we're meeting the aims of a public body in the public interest - for example, delivering a government or local authority service. This is called ‘public task’

to carry out a contract we have with you - for example, if you're an employee we might need to store your bank details so we can pay you. This is called ‘contract’

to defend our legal rights - for example, sharing information with our legal advisors if there was a complaint that we gave the wrong advice.

We handle and store your personal information in line with the law - including the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

How Citizens Advice Wigan Borough collect your data

Skype, Social Media and telephone (not Adviceline)

In addition to the access methods within the national policy, if you access our advice by Skype, Social Media or via telephone (not adviceline) our adviser will log all your information, correspondence, and notes about your problem into our secure case management systems. Some of your information might also be kept within our secure email and IT systems. We keep your information for 6 years. If your case has been subject to a serious complaint, insurance claim or other dispute we keep the data for 16 years.

Our case management systems are hosted within the EEA and wherever possible, the UK. Most of our trusted partners store their data securely within the European Economic Area (EEA) in line with data protection law.

We'll get your permission by asking you to either:

tick a box online or confirm you are happy to proceed (email and social media)

give agreement over the phone - if you call our Adviceline, Consumer Service, Debt Advice Project or Extra Help Unit.

Before we ask for your permission, we'll always explain how we use your information. If you're using our Debt Advice Project and you've been referred to us from another advice charity, they'll send us your information using a referral form. They'll get your permission before sending us your information.

What information we ask for

We'll only ask for information that's relevant to your problem. Depending on what you want help with, this might include:

your name and contact details - so we can keep in touch with you about your case

How Citizens Advice Wigan Borough uses your information

Working on your behalf

When you give us authority to act on your behalf, for example to help you with a Universal Credit claim, or challenging a decision we'll need to share information with that third party.

This could include for example, the Department of Work and Pensions, Wigan Council, Jobcentre plus, local housing providers or other voluntary sector organisations.

How Citizens Advice Wigan Borough stores your information

We will store the record of your case in a secure case management system, which is only accessed by us. We also use other storage systems to store limited electronic data (such as emails and scanned documents). These include, cloud storage and a physical server which is password protected and locked in a secure room. Data on the server is backed up daily to the cloud which is managed by an ISO27001 compliant company and encrypted prior to being transmitted to UK vaults.

Paper copies of your information may also be stored securely and accessed by staff and volunteers of the Citizens Advice Service. Archived documents are stored by a nationally recognised Company also used by Government departments, held at a secure off-site location and only accessed by security cleared staff of the storage company.

We may also use the Advice Referral Centre (ARC) to make referrals to other local organisations on your behalf. This database and host website uses TLS encryption, which is enforced globally throughout the site. This protects the security and privacy of users. All information transmitted to it including data entered into forms and the URL within the domain are encrypted. Your information is only passed to other organisations with your permission, for the purposes of assisting you to get the help you need.

How Citizens Advice Wigan Borough shares your information

We may refer you to another advice provider and share personal information with those advice providers so that they have initial information to help you further with your issue. Everything you've told us will be treated confidentially by them.

Sometimes we will refer you to another organisation for specialist advice. We can help get you an appointment and we will pass on the information you've already provided so you don't need to do it again.

We might ask another organisation or another part of Citizens Advice service to contact you, so we can find out if you were satisfied with the service you received and more about your experience of Citizens Advice. To do this we will need to share your contact details.

Sometimes we also share information about how you contacted Citizens Advice, what the topic of your visit was, what the level of support you received, and what country you are in. We do this to make sure we hear from different groups of clients and we only share what is absolutely necessary.

If you've given us permission to share your details with the Money Advice Service (MAS) for satisfaction monitoring, they, or an agency appointed by them, might contact you by phone, email, or letter.

If you've given us permission to share your details and case file with the MAS for quality monitoring, your issue and the advice you received may be reviewed and feedback given to your adviser.

Contact Citizens Advice Wigan Borough about your information

If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our office.

Telephone: 01942 709709

We are available, Monday to Friday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm and Saturday 9:00 am to 12:00 noon, or,

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

You can contact us to:

find out what personal information we hold about you

correct your information if it's wrong, out of date or incomplete

request we delete your information

ask us to limit what we do with your data - for example, ask us not to share it if you haven't asked us already

ask us to give you a copy of the data we hold in a format you can use to transfer it to another service

Each local Citizens Advice is an independent charity, and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity. The Citizens Advice membership agreement also requires that the use of your information complies with data protection law.

Note: This privacy policy only covers this website www.cawb.org.uk; other websites linked from this website are not covered by this policy. Once you have accessed another website via one of our links you will be subject to the security and privacy policy of that site.